fic: regression
REGRESSION (the line of best fit)
the newsroom, mackenzie mchale (will/mac, brian/mac), post 110, r.
and it’s almost as if the last five years never really happened, as though they were simply a bad dream.
your face has followed me home
with unwanted grace I leave you lonely and
we would never make a perfect piece to fit
KYLA LA GRANGE
“What did the message say?” She asks, and finally, slowly, he tells her. He stutters and starts and she cocks her head to listen closer, finally places a kiss on his lips. It’s chaste, tentative, but he seems to understand.
“Mackenzie-“ he murmurs, pulls back.
She nods. “As long as it takes.”
It doesn’t take long at all. Six weeks later she sits on the side of his bed, her belongings falling out of his drawers and her toothbrush beside his. It’s domestic, and it’s almost as if the last five years never really happened, as though they were simply a bad dream.
She tells him this, and he grins, folds her hair back behind her ears, “They were.”
He’s determined to begin afresh, and she plays along. It’s misplaced guilt, perhaps, but she owes this to him at least.
So when he says, “I love you,” she smiles wide and sincere.
“I love you too.”
It’s just a bad dream, she thinks, when Brian calls her. He haunted her thoughts before, she reasons, so why not after as well?
Don’t act coy, Mackenzie. Look, just…call me when you’re free, OK?. The voicemail goes. Her eyes flick to Will, soundly asleep, and an echo: I not just saying this because I’m high-
“Message deleted.”
She flips her phone screen side down to avoid the flashing red light, lets her eyes flicker shut and Will pull her close. She’s warm, too warm, beside him and she’s determined not to let it bother her when he groans her name through his sleep.
The first time, of course, they are drunk, and deep down she knows that isn’t an excuse. It’s a reason though, and it’s good enough for now when he pushes into her with a pleasing, if passing, familiarity. Still, she turns her face away when he attempts to draw her lips into a kiss.
Her thighs slip wider all the same.
“Fuck,” she gasps when his fingers ghost across her clit, strains harder to stifle herself in the pillow.
He catches her jaw, turns her towards him, “Descriptive as ever,” He smirks, “The Peabody’s came naturally, eh?”
When she kisses him it’s mostly just to shut him the hell up.
There’s a second and a third time too. After all, they don’t call it a habit for nothing. “Brian,” she begins, twists her fingers together, “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“I know, I find me irresistible too.”
She remembers a conversation just like this one, half a decade ago.
She can’t quite meet Will’s gaze when she sits him down with a scotch and a cigarette and tells him, finally, the truth. And yes, there is a sense of déjà vu to this whole debacle. Thank you. Well observed.
It still hurts like a bitch when she sees the lights go out behind his eyes. “Just-get out.”
Her teachers used to sigh and say: the only person you’re cheating is yourself.
end.
the newsroom, mackenzie mchale (will/mac, brian/mac), post 110, r.
and it’s almost as if the last five years never really happened, as though they were simply a bad dream.
your face has followed me home
with unwanted grace I leave you lonely and
we would never make a perfect piece to fit
KYLA LA GRANGE
“What did the message say?” She asks, and finally, slowly, he tells her. He stutters and starts and she cocks her head to listen closer, finally places a kiss on his lips. It’s chaste, tentative, but he seems to understand.
“Mackenzie-“ he murmurs, pulls back.
She nods. “As long as it takes.”
It doesn’t take long at all. Six weeks later she sits on the side of his bed, her belongings falling out of his drawers and her toothbrush beside his. It’s domestic, and it’s almost as if the last five years never really happened, as though they were simply a bad dream.
She tells him this, and he grins, folds her hair back behind her ears, “They were.”
He’s determined to begin afresh, and she plays along. It’s misplaced guilt, perhaps, but she owes this to him at least.
So when he says, “I love you,” she smiles wide and sincere.
“I love you too.”
It’s just a bad dream, she thinks, when Brian calls her. He haunted her thoughts before, she reasons, so why not after as well?
Don’t act coy, Mackenzie. Look, just…call me when you’re free, OK?. The voicemail goes. Her eyes flick to Will, soundly asleep, and an echo: I not just saying this because I’m high-
“Message deleted.”
She flips her phone screen side down to avoid the flashing red light, lets her eyes flicker shut and Will pull her close. She’s warm, too warm, beside him and she’s determined not to let it bother her when he groans her name through his sleep.
The first time, of course, they are drunk, and deep down she knows that isn’t an excuse. It’s a reason though, and it’s good enough for now when he pushes into her with a pleasing, if passing, familiarity. Still, she turns her face away when he attempts to draw her lips into a kiss.
Her thighs slip wider all the same.
“Fuck,” she gasps when his fingers ghost across her clit, strains harder to stifle herself in the pillow.
He catches her jaw, turns her towards him, “Descriptive as ever,” He smirks, “The Peabody’s came naturally, eh?”
When she kisses him it’s mostly just to shut him the hell up.
There’s a second and a third time too. After all, they don’t call it a habit for nothing. “Brian,” she begins, twists her fingers together, “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“I know, I find me irresistible too.”
She remembers a conversation just like this one, half a decade ago.
She can’t quite meet Will’s gaze when she sits him down with a scotch and a cigarette and tells him, finally, the truth. And yes, there is a sense of déjà vu to this whole debacle. Thank you. Well observed.
It still hurts like a bitch when she sees the lights go out behind his eyes. “Just-get out.”
Her teachers used to sigh and say: the only person you’re cheating is yourself.
end.